Charges against cleaner dropped

Brazilian cleaner Roselane Driza walked free from court after charges that she stole two sexy videos from a male judge and blackmailed a female judge were dropped.

The sensational development came a fortnight before Driza, 37, was due to face a retrial at the Old Bailey.

Judge Martin Stephens was told that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to proceed. The move follows a High Court appeal in February against her earlier conviction at the Old Bailey.

The grounds for appeal could not be reported except that it was on the basis of new evidence.

Driza was sentenced to 33 months in prison last October for stealing videos from her lover, Judge Mohammed Ilyas Khan, and for blackmailing a female judge for £20,000. But she was cleared of blackmailing 61-year-old Judge Khan, with whom she was living until her arrest.

After Driza and Judge Khan became lovers, he sent her intimate text messages and emails, including one in which he told her she was "chilli hot stuff".

The charges alleged that between January 1 and October 26 2005 she "made an unwarranted demand for £20,000 on the female person, with menaces". The second count of theft alleged that between June 1 and October 1 of the same year she stole two video cassettes "belonging to a male person".

Driza, of Birchanger Road, South Norwood, south London, had pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing in March and was granted bail. A month later, she was told the retrial would go ahead.

Following the first trial, an investigation was ordered into the behaviour of the immigration judges by the Office of Judicial Complaints.

Earlier this year, it emerged that Judge Khan was paid £8,240 a month salary since he was asked not to sit in court last September. The woman judge, known only as Judge J, retired on a medical pension. The judges had both been employing Driza illegally.